88 fic - Future Echoes

[deird1]

Title: Future Echoes
Author: deird1
Rating: G
Word Count: 295
Prompt: 088 (ghosts)
Character: Buffy - who is completely alone. Really. She's always been an only child.


Future Echoes

The crossing guard lady was crazy – everyone knew that.
Buffy walked past her every morning on the way to school, and every morning she was just as weird.

She’d introduced herself, back before Buffy knew she was crazy.
“Hi.” A smile. “I’m Janet. You’re new here, aren’t you? What’s your name?”
“I’m Buffy. I’ve just started middle school round at Mitchell.”
“Nice to meet you, Buffy! And is this young lady your little sister?”
“Um… what?”
And Janet just stood there looking at the empty space on Buffy’s left side, as if it wasn’t empty.

So yeah – crazy.

It wasn’t like that all the time. Some days she’d just smile, normally, and wave her across. But every time Buffy began to relax, and forget about it, it’d all start up again.
Janet would wave at empty air a metre up from ground level.
Or she’d frown, and ask, “Is your sister sick, Buffy? I haven’t seen her lately.”
Or sometimes she’d start conducting a whole conversation with no-one at all: “Hi, hon. How’s school going? Is big sis helping you learn what’s what?”

Weirdest of all, was the times when Buffy almost thought she’d heard someone answer.

And it gave her the wiggins. Complete wiggins. Every time she crossed that road, she’d feel as if there was someone next to her – a little invisible person skipping along asking a stream of endless questions.
A couple of times, Buffy almost believed she’d seen a little girl, with brown hair and skinned knees – but there was NO-ONE. She knew there was no-one. No little girl, no-one beside her, nothing, nothing at all. Just some weird crazy crossing guard who talked to thin air.

Buffy started taking the long route to school, and forgot about the whole thing.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Excellent work again - just creepy enough, and good use of the "people outside reality" angle.

Plus, I think you gave me a Halloween plotbunny... ;-)

[deird1]

Woo! Plotbunny creation! Always a good thing.

I'm glad you liked this!

[cmk418]

Oh, that's nice and creepy. Well done!

[deird1]

Thanks!

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's interesting. And spooky!

[deird1]

Glad you liked it!

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Very nice! Clever and touching.

[deird1]

Thanks!

[tinpra.livejournal.com]

Very nicely done. Love the there/not thereness, which of course only works b/c we know about Dawn. Which makes me wonder about the crossing lady.

[deird1]

Glad you liked it!

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Very cool take on the backward reverberations of the monk's rewrite. If "everybody" knows the crossing guard lady is crazy, she must see more than just Dawn. Intriguing.

[deird1]

Thanks!

I did kinda wonder what else she might be seeing...

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Stellar. Awesome idea and terrific execution.

[deird1]

Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

very interesting look into the head of young-Buffy, and how the effects of what the monks did may have manifested themselves. Loved especially loved the line, "Weirdest of all, was the times when Buffy almost thought she’d heard someone answer."

It directly connects to that last line, but also to the three times that Buffy refers to the crossing guard as 'crazy'. A wonderfully inter-connected little web.

Reading your fic immediately put me in mind of a story that I read several years ago. Before I wrote this comment (I read your fic yesterday), I decided to hunt it down and, after hunting through all the fics I've printed up over the years, I managed to find it and have included the link below.

Edit by Marcus Rowland
http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-6967/MarcusRowland+Edit.htm

I hope you find it interesting,
thanks for all your wonderful fics,
still under Willow & Tara's spell,
Ray (kerkevik@btinternet.com)

[deird1]

Glad you like it!

Thanks for linking me to Marcus Rowland's fic - I think I have read it before, but I'd forgotten all about it.
Maybe some of it stuck in my subconscious when I was writing this...

[angelus2hot]

Wonderfully written!

[deird1]

Thanks!